


The Prince of Night Places

by Rabbit



Category: Labyrinth
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-15
Updated: 2010-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 05:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabbit/pseuds/Rabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toby is older, and has some difficulties with dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dream

In his dreams, he was the most important thing in the world.

This was not as nice a thing as it might at first sound. In his dreams, he was a thing. Like the holy grail or the golden fleece. He was an object of some sacred quest, a hostage for the hopeful, trapped in a silver ball on an ivory pedestal, watched over by a wild white owl. Sometimes it kept it's yellow gaze fixed upon him, watching him watch it from his crystal prison; other times the owl simply stood sentinel, gazing out over a sprawling construct: a labyrinth made of sparkling sand and dreams discarded. He thought, these times, he might escape, but the owl always caught him.

 _You are the most important thing in the world_ , it told him, _for without you, she would not be here, and as long as I have you, she will not leave._

And a laugh like warm evenings and violin strings would haunt him until he woke.

And then, when he turned thirteen and Sarah went away to graduate school, he stopped dreaming all together.

He would only connect the loss of his dreams to Sarah's leaving years later, when the adolescent surety of being the center of the waking world had faded somewhat and he was getting close to seventeen years old. For gradually, he had begun to suspect that he wasn't the center of anything, anywhere, and his own life did not really belong to him. He put all of this in the letter to Sarah, away at Meredith College, studying journalism and trade writing and practical things like that, after she decided not to come home for Christmas her final year.

" _I feel so peripheral_ ," he wrote, " _like I'm on the edge of everyone's vision. Mom said that everyone feels like that at my age, and that even you went through it when I was a baby. But when she said it, she didn't look at me. I tried to get her to meet my eyes, and I swear to god that she couldn't. I think the last time somebody looked directly at me was the last time you were here for a visit, Sarah. I still haven't had a single dream since you moved away. Though I only ever had the one dream in the first place; the one I told you about..._ "

He waited and waited for a response. It would be another month nearly, the next time the moon went dark, before he got one.


	2. Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a warm and seasonable evening, and his parents had gone out to enjoy it and each other. He didn't mind. He supposed it was sweet that some married people could still go out and do that. Either way, their abscence spared him any possible human interaction for the rest of the night, which was truly a blessing. People made him feel like he was standing at a 45 degrees to the ground while everyone else was at proper right angles. Solitude was steadying enough that he typically forgot to be lonely. Being off-kilter in company was far lonlier.

Spring had finally begun, and Toby's father had spoken to Sarah just yesterday. While Toby was out, dammit, of course. Letters had not been mentioned, but plans for attending Sarah's graduation had been laid, which gave him something to look forward to. A glimmer.

It was a warm and seasonable evening, and his parents had gone out to enjoy it and each other. He didn't mind. He supposed it was sweet that some married people could still go out and do that. Either way, their abscence spared him any possible human interaction for the rest of the night, which was truly a blessing. People made him feel like he was standing at a 45 degrees to the ground while everyone else was at proper right angles. Solitude was steadying enough that he typically forgot to be lonely. Being off-kilter in company was far lonlier.

Besides, this night was so sweet and so sultry that he could leave the windows wide, playing synthesised music on his electric guitar or his keyboard about the wakng things in his head, stories and notions just as strange as the things that other people would talk about and call their crazy dreams.

He wrote music more than anything, about the adventures of the Prince of Night Places on the Plane of Unpercieved Reality. He could see it all in his mind when he was fully awake, and only then. A boy in a silk cape slipping through tiny cracks in the universe, fighting off demons and goblins and gods and looking for the Holy Grail, or maybe it was the Glowing Owl, or maybe it was nothing at all, but looking, looking, just the same, because what was the point in going if you weren't looking for something?

He liked being alone, so that he could concentrate on the places his mind took him and the music they together created, but tonight he wanted Sarah to be here.

"Why the hell hasn't she written back?" He growled in wonder and tune as he played. He thought of a princess, far away, trapped, forbidden to call out for help- that was rediculous, she'd been heard from as recently as yesterday. He thought quite fleetingly of entering her room for comfort, but discarded it quickly. He loved her, dearly, but he hated that place. If it was disconcerting for people to look at one askance, it was pure freakish hell for Things to look at one dead on. To stare and follow one around the room with little beaded, button eyes... her room made him feel as if he might suffocate. Stuffed animals. He'd always been allergic to him, save perhaps for Lancelot, which Sarah had given him, as a baby. But that bear was so abused, the nap so threadbare, there was no dander left to make him sneeze. Becides, unlike the Things in Sarah's room, Lancelot had a complacent, comfortable expression. Those others... they seemed like he was about to do something terrible and sudden. Worse than people, they were. Their quiet menace would push him out of there rather than give him any solace, and he would be comforted just to leave.

He ceased his playing and leaned his head back over the backrest of his chair, his long, dark brown hair weighing him plesantly down. His dad didn't like his hair, but girls did. That was how people knew him, when they had cause to recall him- Toby, the boy with the goregous long hair, almost black, so dark it was. He'd been fair, as a child, but most hair darkens as one gets older, his mother had said. Never mind that her hair was tow as anything, but he suspected she dyed it. Which was a thought. Dying probably wouldn't hurt anything. Now cutting... the very thought siezed him with terror. He fancied that if he cut his hair ever, he would disappear completely.

But his sister would be able to see him, of course. She always did, no matter what- went out of her way, in fact, to see him when no one else did. It wasn't like her, not to have returned a letter from him. Maybe it had gotten lost in the mail. Maybe hehad only fancied he'd sent a letter at all. He thought of calling her, if he could find the number. He wished...

"Gods and Goblins," He grunted, the curse springing unbidden to his lips, "but I wish that Sarah was here. Right now."

"That's terribly funny." Said a voice directly behind him, carried in on a suden chill through the open window, "but I might have said exactly the same thing."


	3. Bargain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Not the most graceful little goblin, are you Jareth?" Smirked the voice.

The voice thrummed like guitar strings and the vibrato of electric keyboards, like violins and the dead of night. Toby caught only the briefest, upside down glance of the intruder before he over balanced, tumbling ass over elbows as the chair toppled backwards.

"Not the most graceful little goblin, are you Jareth?" Smirked the voice.

Toby managed to arrange himself on all fours enough so that he could reconcile voice with speaker. Speaker was tall and blond and glittered as if He Himself were set with stars. He wore the night as a cape, or perhaps a cape as the night, but either way clutched in long-fingered hands which seemed to have personalities entirely independent of their smiling master. His teeth were sharp like things from fairy tales that liked to eat children for breakfast, and they were grinning at him. Of all the weird things he had dreamed up waking, this was, by far, the most weird and slightly cool.

He didn't want to ask what the person was doing there, or how they got there. So he said, 'My name's not Jareth. But if I'm a goblin, s'at make you a god?"

"A god? Now there's an idea I've never heard before from one like you, Jareth. If you are a goblin, you certainly are a Jareth." The tall man grinned and swept back his cloak, seating himself on Toby's bed. "I named you myself in fact. You've only forgotten."

"Oh?" Toby picked himself up carefully, righting his chair and straddling it backwards. "Am I a goblin, then? Is there anyone like me?"

The man looked at him for a long, twinkling time, and then shook his head with a smile.

"You might be a goblin. But no, I'm afraid there isn't anyone like you." he touched a finger to his chin thoughtfully, "I must say, you are a lot smarter than your sister was when she was your age. Though I wonder if you're as clever. Why _didn't_ you wish for what you really want, instead of squandering it on that stubborn little girl? You should know by now, as long as you've lived with her, she's not the sort to come readily when called. Nor is she particularly open to orders, suggestions, or even friendly advice. There's only so much magic allotted to each person in your world, Jareth, and it seems rather a pity to waste even a scrap of it on someone like her."

Toby cocked his head. " _Is_ there anyone like her, then?"

"My!" The man laughed richly, tossing his head back, like a lanky mustang, "You are full of the bright questions. "Like Sarah? Hardly." He said her name as if he said it often, with a familiar, exasperated fondness, "Sarah and I go way back, back to when you were only a little goblin baby. No, I don't suppose you would remember me at that. You were, in fact, frightfully young at the time. Such a pity." He shook his head. "But you've gone and wasted that wish of yours, and there really isn't anything I can do about that, directly. So imagine I ought to be going." He rose. "Give my love to your sister, Jareth, next time you see her." He bowed gracefully, and pulled the rippling curtain back from the window.

"If you can't do anything about it," said Toby quickly, not really inclined to see this waking-dream end, "then why did you come?"

The man paused, then turned back into the room.

"Now that you mention it, Jareth, there is something. But it will require a little effort on your part." He paced very slowly in front of the window. Then stopped again. "You know, I named you very well. You still have my eyes. I originally came to get them back, but they look quite well on you, I think." Toby's eyes flickered up to his visitors, and the world tilted forty-five degrees as he met pure black sockets, where eyes should have been. And then there they were, one brown eye and one blue, twinkling at some spot just over Toby's shoulder. Toby started. His eyes really were mismatched like that. He moved to say so, but as he did, the man's gaze shifted, just over Toby's other shoulder. The room stayed askew.

"Has anyone ever told you," murmured the man, "that you have the most lovely hair?"

"Stop that!" Toby swayed to his feet, dismayed by his severe disorientation. Everything had been a fine, just a moment ago! "You're doing that on purpose!"

"What's that? What am I doing?" The two-tone gaze switched shoulders again, "what is it you want me to do, Jareth? I'm afraid I don't quite follow you. You're fading, you see."

Toby did not look down at his hands to make sure they were still there. He looked at the man's hands, toying with a crystal ball. Two crystal balls. They flowed over the too-clever fingers, dancing merrily. Toby felt an overwhelming urge to grab them and smash them, but he didn't move. He concentrated on standing upright.

"Look at me," Toby pleaded, clenching his teeth around the words, "I need you to look directly at me, or get out of here."

"Now why's that? I thought we were getting on so very well, Jareth." The mockery in the man's voice sang up and down like gypsy fiddles, like dreams one had almost forgotten. Maybe this was, finally, a dream? Maybe he'd really fallen asleep, for once, and that's what this was... a flush of relief washed over him, and he smiled, exhaling.

"Oh, I can stand it now, if I'm really dreaming again. If I've got my dreams back, then maybe people will..."

"What? See you?" The eyes snapped back on Toby hard, and the room righted so suddenly it forced him back into the chair. The visitor pursed his lips. "It could be. So, is that why you wanted Sarah here. Not because you really wished for her presence but because..." He was being invited to fill in the blank, and found himself doing so without thinking about it,

"...Because my real wish is..." He stopped, looking at the man's expression, fixed eagerly on his face. _The right words_ , they seemed to say. _You know them, come on._ Toby licked his lips, "That is, I wish..." He stopped. The man blinked, even before Toby spoke. "Tell me what you get out of this. That's not a wish, mind."

Something very ugly passed over the visitor's face, his teeth glinting wickedly in the lamplight. "I've already told you my wish, Jareth. I told you when I first appeared. It's not my fault if you've forgotten already." He chuckled meanly.

"So, why are you using your wish on..." He broke off as those teeth snapped in his direction.

"I have considerably more magic than you do, my little goblin prince. I'm even less human than you are." The teeth made a very feral smile, "Now, are you going to say it, or am I going to leave again? I see, by the look of you, there's something you've remembered. You're not going to make me spell things out for you, are you? No, you're far smarter than that."

Toby frowned. He had never believed that the things in his dream were ever, "just" things in his dream. Or perhaps he'd just come to believe that, in their absence. But the voice in his dream had a face, that was clear, and here it was. In the inhuman flesh.

"The dreams didn't leave until she did." Toby said.

"Good for you!" The man tossed a ball over to Toby, who caught it unthinkingly. "Can you handle another?"

"What's your name?"

"Now, that's a real trick to juggle." He tossed another crystal, and Toby caught it. They spun in his hands, and he stared. "What do you think? It's the same as yours."

"Tob..." Duh. The boy tore his gaze away from the churning crystals in his hands, and tried not to look at the ones in... "Jareth?"

"Got it in one and a half, my bright little goblin! Not that I expect it should matter much. Anything else you want to juggle, while you're at it?"

The crystals were moving Toby's fingers, faster than he'd known they could move. Jareth readied another one to toss, and Toby swallowed hard. With a supreme force of will, he clasped the balls still in his hands and squeezed them until he thought they, or his fingers, would break.

"I wish to have my dreams back, so that people will see me again!"

"Very good!" Jareth crowed, and Toby opened eyes he hadn't known he'd shut. "Very good indeed."

Toby's fingers relaxed, and the crystal spheres slipped from them, arching neatly back to Jareth's hands. He tucked them back inside of his cape, save one.

"There." Jareth smiled, setting the crystal down on the bed. "You'll want to keep this. A souvenir, think of it." He grinned, all fangs again, and went back to the window. "Don't lose it, mind. Or break it. That would be terrible."

Toby stared at it, licked his lips with a very dry tongue, and flicked his gaze up at Jareth. "Right. Thanks..."

"Oh no." The man raised one of those long, eloquent hands again, "Thank you, Jareth. I expect we'll see each other again. Sometime. Sweet Dreams..." And then he was gone. When Toby went to the window, he saw the owl perched on a branch a little ways away wink at him, then take wing. He shivered a little.

The crystal still lay complacently upon his coverlet. He took it up, gazing at it, a world of color seemingly trapped inside the glass. He was still turning it slowly in his hands, when the door opened downstairs.

They were home. He put the crystal on a model stand on his night table, and slipped out of his jeans, snuggling down under the covers with a comic book. Presently, there was a tap on the door.

"Toby? You awake? The light's on..."

"Sort of."

The door opened, and his dad put his head in. "What'cha reading, sport?" He smiled through his beard. Toby looked up from the comic, and his eyes met his father's with a profound shock.

"Something the matter, Toby?" But the old man was smiling.

"No, no nothing..." Toby looked back down at the page, and back up, just to be sure.

"Is everything all right?" Toby's mom peered over her husbands shoulder, and smiled at her son. At him. Directly, wonderfully, ninety degrees _at_ him. Toby slid out of the bed, and surprised them both by throwing his arms around them in a profound and heartfelt hug.

"Woah!" Said dad, patting his son's back, "you're too old to have missed us that much."

"Are you sure everything's okay, honey?" said his mom, a mix of surprised warmth and finicky concern. He loved them so. He loved them both. He felt like they'd been away for years... or he had. God bless that Jareth, parlor tricks or no!

"Everything's fine." He grinned at them, sheepishly. "I just had... a bad dream. That's all. Really."


	4. Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the day, the people were good to him too. They looked and blinked and smiled, and when they spoke they met his eyes, and god that was good.

The first night, Toby dreamed of cities in amber, night skies spangled with comets, of rivers that glistened like the backs of emerald snakes and a moon like a crystal sphere. And he walked through the cities and played his music to make the people dance and the world-gates open, and that was the first night.

In the day, the people were good to him too. They looked and blinked and smiled, and when they spoke they met his eyes, and god that was good.

The second night, Toby dreamed of a house that was also a song, that played itself a thousand different ways as you walked through the rooms and fan your hands over the window sills, staring out at a moon like a crystal sphere, wreathed in the winking eyes of a thousand thousand stars, green and white and blue and red. And that was the second night.

The third night, Toby dreamed of a cup at the bottom of the ocean, and he had to sing the sirens to sleep to dive through the waters and recover it. The cup was a goblet shaped like an owl, and in the cup was the moon like a crystal sphere, and he drank it and woke up. And that was the third night.

The day following that dream, Toby was approached by a blond boy who played drums and wondered if Toby wanted to join his band. They got together in the boy's garage with a dour-looking girl who had hair like a shaggy chestnut horse and a base guitar that cried when she stroked it and another girl who was small and pale as a moon with eyes like chips of green glass and chunky cat-eye black glasses and hair like an oil spill. Their names were Jonah and Michigan and Jade, and Toby loved them the moment he saw them. And at the end of the evening, at the very tail end of the very last chord they could collectively create at a time like this, they were the Princes of Night Places and Toby was their crown prince, and they would get together tomorrow eve and jam some more.

The fourth night, Toby didn't sleep at all, but he dreamed of a series of stark white stars you could walk over and through, and he lay on his bed tossing the crystal Jareth had given him up in the air, watching it flash and catching it again, feeling like a cat with all of the toys in the world, feeling like the brightest of all the stars in his dream. And when he slept in class the next day, he dreamt, but he didn't remember what he dreamt, which was another kind of just plain Good. And that was the fourth night.

The fifth night, after he came home from his evening of creation with his new band and after he'd hugged his parents good-night, Toby dreamed of a great stone tower, run through with every kind of precious metal and jewel and ore. And all around the tower, every kind of bird roosted and rested and ruffled their wings and scuttled and preened in the windows and cupolas, but not one of them sang, nor screamed, nor called. So he taught them the languages that birds ought to know, and thought nothing of the great crystal sphere like an iridescent moon at the very top of the tower, for it was fitting that it be there, and by now, had it not, Toby would surely have missed it.

The sixth night, Toby dreamed of climbing ladders, of rising through skies on the fingers of great soft hands, of climbing through clouds and darknesses and nebulas to get to that bright crystal moon, which had followed him this far, and he wondered what it was, really, and why it was his to dream of- if it was just a thing, or if there was a reason, something else and more and deeper? But when he woke, what he remberes was climbing, not any of the other stuff, and that was all right because the climbing felt just like flying. And there's nothing better, after all, than flying in dreams. And that was the sixth night.

The seventh night, Toby flew. He closed his eyes and savored the sush of sweet wind over his wild white wings, and trhe sky was his own and the night was his own. And that was the seventh night.

On the next day, his sister came home, quite unexpectedly, and that is when things changed again.


	5. Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They had songs now, of ideas for songs; lots of them, and more all the time. They would be called things like Crystal Ball Moon, and Brown Eye Blue Eye and Forty-Five Degrees and Dream and Wish and Bargain and Gift and other things. The other things came out of all of their various dreams, and those were just the ones that were Toby's first and foremost.

Toby asked the Princes if they wanted to practice at his house that night, because, of course, his sister was coming home! And he wanted her to meet them, to show her that really she could disregard that letter of his and also something else. Which thing he and the Night Princes could sing about better than explain.

They had songs now, of ideas for songs; lots of them, and more all the time. They would be called things like Crystal Ball Moon, and Brown Eye Blue Eye and Forty-Five Degrees and Dream and Wish and Bargain and Gift and other things. The other things came out of all of their various dreams, and those were just the ones that were Toby's first and foremost.

It took a little convincing, but Karen was finally talked into letting them use the garage (in her words) even with Sarah coming. Mr. Williams helped.

"It's such a relief to see that the boy has friends, Karen," he said in his amiably practical way, "And they can't hang around that Jonah kid's house all the time. Speaking of which, as much time as Toby spends over there, it's about time that we met this Jonah and his friends, don't you think?"

"Well, I suppose..."

"Look, if it's dinner you're worried about, I'll cook." And he winked and smiled, and that was the end of that.

The Princes got together a little over half an hour before Mrs. Williams went to pick up Sarah from the airport, just as Mr. Williams started dinner. They held practices the same way always, a ritual well formed for being practiced less than a week.

The first thing they did was sit in a circle and tell each other their dreams, in order to collect song material for this night.

Toby told his dream first, and we already know what he dreamed of.

Jonah had dreamed about a black-eyed man in a black hat who offered him his heart's desire in return for his name and a pair of kid-skin gloves.

Michigan had dreamed of a white-haired woman with the face of a girl, who stood in a garden of roses who told her, quite matter-of-factly, that wishes did come true, and then she pricked her thumb on the pin in her hat and woke up.

And Jade had dreamed about sailing on a wide blue river in a beautiful glass boat carved to look like an owl, and a lot of singing, and she'd thought it was odd because owls can't swim and there was more, but she couldn't remember.

"And you were all in it, too," she said, but she couldn't remember what everyone was doing, and then the garage door opened to announce that Mrs. Williams and Sarah were home, home, home.

They started playing before Sarah got out of the car, and this was the song that they played:

 _Come  
And See  
My  
World _   
__

It is the world that you dreamed, then put aside.

Come  
And be  
My  
Dream

In That Place where secret things abide,

Come and ride my midnight carousel,  
Come and take my hand again,  
Just as you dreamt it, only wait! There's more:  
Come and ride down the roads you've not ridden before.

Through the broken glass  
Through the Crystal shattered and betrayed,  
I have kept my Words,  
In the Heart of the World that You have made,

Do  
You miss  
the  
kiss  
Of ashes and silk, of moonlight and lace?

Do  
You Never  
Dream  
Of what kisses might have touched your face?

Down the path to the castle that you know  
Down the ways your wishes waltzed before  
Could you love the creature, built of your own hands:  
A man-faced monster of an monstrous man?

Through the Wakened Dream,  
Through the Midnight made of Thirteen hours,  
I have kept my heart,  
For My Will Is As Strong as Yours.

The song was called the Worldshaper's Waltz, out loud, though Toby thought of it as Jareth's Lament. And he didn't mean to say that name to Sarah when she asked in her curious voice what the song was called, after she and Mr. And Mrs. Williams applauded when the band was done, but he did anyway.

"Jareth?" Said Mr. Williams, but Toby was looking at Sarah's face, and Sarah was looking right through him.

"A guy in a dream I had," Toby explained mumblingly, "All the songs we play are from our dreams, mostly."

He had told the Princes of Night Places about the sharp-toothed man with his crystals and his wishes, more or less. He had said it was only a thing in his dream, and he had left out the part about his sister, at length. So they were all nodding and grinning though the good sweat of a song well played, and then they launched into one of Jade's dreams, another dream-like waltz called Tumbling Over Ivory.

After that it was more practice like, with Sarah and the parents coming and going and telling them they really liked the music. Michigan and Jade and Jonah all told Toby that his sister was really pretty, and so _intense_ , in the way that she looked at things. Toby knew that was just tonight. She was giving him that, _I want to talk with you_ look, and she gave it to him all through the dinner break with the band, clearly not wanting to speak in front of them or in front of the parents. Toby just let himself be swept along on the tide of what was happening right before him. Things would follow in their natural course. Sarah's presence anchored the world, made it feel so disorientingly simple. He felt as if he were going to drift off dreaming any second, like it was okay and the world was okay, and if it wasn't, Sarah would make it so, honest to god.

This thought was his secret smile as they sat together later, up in his room after the Princes had gone home. Or rather, she sat and he stretched out on his bed, twirling his bedside crystal between his fingers and sharing the smile with Sarah, who looked at him, her eyes penetrating and revelatory.

"You guys are really good," she said, sitting in his computer chair, elbows on the knees of her jeans. She still dressed like a princess displaced in Urbania, only more so; poet blouse and jeans with velvet cuffs, long wavy hair tied back with a red velvet scunchie. She still looked like a princess too, and Toby's smile turned grinny.

"Thanks, though you said that already. Not bad for our fifth night of practice, huh?"

Sarah nodded. She looked like she was having trouble speaking, for a moment. Toby spoke instead.

"You never answered my letter. Did you even get it?"

"The last letter I got from you was over a year ago, Toby..." Sarah said slowly, "What did it say?"

"It doesn't really matter." He shrugged, tossing the crystal up and catching it again, as he had on the fourth night, "It's fixed now. And you know how with emotions... like when you're really depressed, you can't imagine ever being happy, and when you're happy, you know there was a time you were sad, but you just can't... process what it feels like?"

Sarah nodded, "Yes..."

"It's kind of like that. I don't know. It was really wierd. You know, I only started having dreams again a week ago?"

"A week ago?" Sarah stood up.

"Yeah, a week ago." Toby watched her with interest, "why?"

"Toby, you have to answer something, and this is very, very important, okay?" She tucked a few stray strands uncoralled by scunchie back behind her ears, and knelt beside the bed. She tried to fix Toby with her _This is important!_ look, but the movements of the flying crystal, up and down like a reverse yo-yo in Toby's hands kept catching her eye. Whatever she had been going to ask died in her mouth, and she said instead, "Where did you get that?"

"From a man with two eyes, one brown one blue," Toby sang, after another song that was in his head, "He said I was a Goblin/ But I don't know if that's true. Oooh oooh ooh, what's a boy to... Hey!"

Before he could finish the verse, Sarah stretched up and snatched the crystal from the air, then hurled it against the wall, where it smashed into little glistening shards. The shards hit the ground and shattered further into sparkling dust, and the window flew open and the wind howled wild.

There were little gigglings in the room, the gibbering of things crawling out from the shadows, darting under the bed, whispering behind bookcases and computer consoles, watching.

What they watched was the unconcious body of a black-haired boy stretched out on the bed, eyes empty of everything save void, hands over his chest like sleeping beauty. There had been a girl in the room a moment ago who called herself Sarah Williams, but she wasn't there anymore. She wasn't what anyone would call anywhere.

And that was the eighth night.


	6. Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was something sharp in his shoulder, like pain but only almost. He looked and it was owl talons. The white owl looked at him.

There was something sharp in his shoulder, like pain but only almost. He looked and it was owl talons. The white owl looked at him.

"Hoo." He said, and looked back at his sister.

"Give me the child." She said.

"But there is no child, Sarah." Blue Eye-Brown-Eye winked at her, and sharp-teeth smiled. Toby pressed his face and the palms of his hands against curved iridescent-clear crystal, through which he could see everything, but everything looked unreal, dream-shimmer.

The Goblin King and his sister sat at an ivory table in a long dark hall made out of stones and bones burnt black, in-set with silver and something else that gleamed. Two goblets set before them, carved whitish, that looked alike at the first looking but were subtly different, somehow. A lit silver candelabra with white tapers in lit them both like an aureole and made their eyes seem to flicker in time with the flames. Sarah looked like a Queen in a white gown out of an old maid's wish, set about with pearls like the souls of saints and inlaid with silver and stars. They wreathed her hair and hung from her ears, and their dust shadowed her eyes and made her lips shimmer. Her lips were frowning, but the frown seemed like a thing of pure delight. The Goblin King looked like himself, night's guardian ogre in deep blues and purples; his stars made out of darkness and a single bright one of pure hope, hidden in his blue eye. He wore a crown of polished iron, and his look was one of extreme cleverness. He was waiting, of course, for Sarah to say something now, and it was taking her a very good deal of time. She was angry, it occurred to Toby, though it took him an equally long time to think so. Apparently, Jareth thought the same, for he spoke again.

"There is no child. There is a young man who belongs to himself only, and is perfectly capable of entering into bargains of his own free will."

"What could he possibly have that you would want?"

"Perhaps you could have thought of it, were you a trifle more perceptive. He, I have found, is far more adept at such things than you are. But perhaps, if you try, you will think of something."

Jareth smiled wider, and the white owl ruffled its wings and shook his head. It's shifting talons alleviated the pressure enough that when it stopped, it refreshed the pain of those talons anew.

"Ow!" hissed Toby sharply, but his sister and the Goblin King did not hear him, inside his crystal globe.

Sarah was looking at Jareth coldly. The silver on Jareth's eyelids seemed to turn to frost under her gaze.

"That is impossible. You never wanted him, and I am no one's to give away."

"And when, exactly, has such a thing as who does and doesn't belong to whom ever gotten in your way, Sarah? As I recall, it was you who never wanted him in the first place, and it was you who gave him to me with a wish. Tell me Sarah, did you fight so hard to steal him back out of love, or out of fear? Your quest was based entirely on a premise that did not matter—what would happen to you if your father and your step-monster found him gone. You never stopped to think that you needn't go back, there was nothing for you but things and ephemera in your other world. You would never have been punished, and you would have been wholly free. Did that never occur to you?"

"Free?" Sarah's hands gripped the lace of the tablecloth, "Free, with you? Free in a world of make-believe, with your traps and your crystals in a world where everyone is terrified of you and your bullying? What kind of freedom is that?"

"What kind of freedom is… haven't you seen it, or were you too wrapped up in the millions of little worlds you're created in your books and your poems that you never really looked at what was around you, in the mundane universe. You left my world, true—you left it, and me, and you took all of my subjects with you, leaving me alone, with only a handful of stories, some wishes to grant, and a bag of dreams all at loose ends. Did you never care what happened to me, Sarah? Did you think your little act of defiance destroyed me? No. It only broke my heart, and that is all."

He sipped some of the liquid from the cup on the left, then he closed his eyes and opened them. When he opened them Toby started, for the eyes were looking right at him, and it made him slip on the smooth crystal surface and nearly fall. But the owl with its pinching talons kept him upright. Blue-eye-brown-eye seemed to laugh, though his lips stayed tightly closed, and then they looked at Sarah again.

"Did you never stop to think what the consequences of your wish might have been for Toby? Yes, you took him back to your normal world and made him live your normal life, but I had seen his dreams by then, and I know what he has wanted, all of this time. You never gave me the opportunity to discuss it with you—his future."

"It didn't belong to you, or to me." Sarah protested,

"On the contrary, Sarah. You gave him to me, after all. Did you know he never dreams, anymore? That when you took him from me, you left his dreams behind? Did you never see the way that people never saw him? Did you never see they way he stood at forty-five degrees to the rest of the world, nothing but the fragile object of a quest? Did you never see the way he needed you, the way that the only dreams he had were ones he took from you, because he had none of his own? Because of what you did to him, when he _was_ a child, something to be bartered for and coveted. Did you know that when you left him, you took his dreams away? Oh yes, he and I have more in common than you know."

"Where is he?" Sarah stood, fists clenched, fire-borne gaze darting about furiously. Toby wanted to say, "Here, I'm here!" But the owl's talon's tightened on his shoulder with a low, warning "hoo." He swatted at it with his other hand, but it didn't seem to mind. Jareth chuckled below them, folding his fingers together like paper cranes.

"I am afraid that he is dreaming, and that now, he will never stop. He will spend eternity in the night places, on the plane of unperceived reality. And by the way—that is your fault too."

"What? I…" She closed her eyes suddenly, remembering. "Oh, God. God dammit, the crystal."

"You always were too hasty. You never thought things through. Your predisposition to be a woman of action is, in some ways admirable, but this time I fear you have done your little brother a great disservice. But isn't that just like you?" He smiled cruelly, "All of your life, quite by accident, you have been hurting that boy. It stands to reason that he might want something for himself sometime. And why shouldn't he want to trade you for it, considering all the pain that you have caused him?"

Sarah slumped back into her chair, and Toby wondered if she really believed all the stuff that Jareth was saying. Or, further, if he did, himself. He wondered how the Goblin King had come to her the first time, and if he had come to Sarah's mother, before her? Either way, he decided that he didn't really think that the state of his dreams could really have been Sarah's fault. After all, she was the only one who really, really saw him.

"What did he wish for?" Sarah was saying.

"That, my dear, is between myself and my namesake. I cannot divulge the terms of a deal made in confidence."

"I have a right to know, if I am in the bargain."

"Very well. He wished to have his dreams back. He wanted people to see him. Something you would know nothing about, I'm sure."

"I always saw him." She said, defensively.

"Did you really? You may have looked at him, and perhaps you watched over him, but did you really _see_ him, Sarah? What do you know about what he wants, or—I ask you again—his dreams? Rather, his lack of dreams. Or else, were you more concerned with protecting yourself and your sense of guilt than ensuring that he was—truly—happy?"

Sarah stared down at the base of the goblets before her, and then looked up at Jareth.

"You have no power over me."

Jareth blinked at her, twice, then threw back his head and laughed. It was a ringing, merry sound, but very unkind; the violin discordant. Sarah stared and stared.

"I certainly do not have any power over you at all, Sarah, as you and I both well know. I have no bargain with you, after all." He leaned forward across the table, "Likewise, however, you have no power over me. Or have you forgotten the real meaning of My Will Is As Strong As Yours?"

His words and his laughing were like a slap in the face to Sarah, and Toby was shocked to see how close she was to defeat. She was beginning to look it—tired and beaten. "What do you want from me?" She asked.

"So it's a question of what I want, is it? That does make things interesting." He folded his hands again and came up with a crystal, which made her start. He turned it over, and it was a peach. "When was the last time you thought of me, Sarah? Other than listening to your brother's music—though I will admit, the boy and his little band have quite a lot of talent, indeed."

Sarah clenched her teeth. "What is it I have to do, to make you release him?"

"You're assuming that I am holding him prisoner."

"Where is he?"

"What a remarkable lot of silly questions you ask, Sarah. Your brother is far more incisive with his. You could learn quite a lot from his manners. But…" He steepled the peach on two of his fingers, and then turned it over. Suddenly, Toby was looking up at the looming face grinning with brown-eye-blue-eye, large clawed fingers below his feet, and the astonished face of his sister staring wide-eyed over the flickering candlelight. The owl on his shoulder did not seem in the slightest disturbed by any of this, and only ruffled its feathers a little and whistled a soft, "hoo."

"You have two options, Sarah" Jareth said, "first, you can fulfill his bargain. Come back to me, let me into your dreams and live in mine, and I shall restore him his crystal, that he may dream and be seen. Or you can deny me again, and awaken."

"And what happens if I deny you?"

"You would really force your brother to continue in that mundane half-life? Of course you would not. Not even I am that cruel, especially not to such a good little goblin as he. I promised him dreams, and he shall have them, whatever you decide."

"You're trying to trick me."

"Perish the thought." He laid a finger aside his mouth. "I can't blame you for not trusting me. I am not at all trustworthy." The crystal raised out of his hand and floated in the centre of the table, over the candelabra. Toby worried that the bottom would get too hot and burn him, but it stayed blissfully cool. "Perhaps we should let the boy say a few words."

And then the bubble burst, and Toby was sitting in a chair at the table, dressed in strange fabrics and with a circlet on his head. He touched it in wonder, and looked from the taught, star-wreathed face of his sister to the smooth, imperturbable face of the Goblin King.

"So Jareth," Said the King to the boy, "what have you got to say for yourself?"

Toby blinked and opened his mouth. A crystal, round and beautiful as the moon transparent dropped out, and he caught it in astonished, ready hands. He blinked again and opened his mouth to make some exclamation, and two more dropped out and into his hands, one in each palm and the third one balanced on top of them.

"Stop it!" Sarah was on her feet, fists clenched and grinding into the table, "you have no power over him!"

"We had a bargain," Jareth rose to his feet as well, like the moon rising in a dark sky over dark earth. The crystals began to spin over Toby's fingers, and when he started to protest, two more joined them, "And You broke it."

He jabbed a finger in Sarah's direction, then stretched out his other hand to Toby. At once the crystals flew out of Toby's flying, dancing hands and came to him, framing his face with their orbit. He crossed his arms.

"Well?" He cocked a fierce, feathered eyebrow at Toby, "don't you have anything to say, my Goblin Prince?"

"Yeah…" Toby gulped air, at finding his voice. Sarah gave a small cry and ran to him, wrapping her arms about him protectively. It gave him comfort, but he still felt… oddly detached. And he didn't like the look on Jareth's face as he witnessed this touching scene. Toby gave Sarah a squeeze back, then gently removed her arms from around him.

"Sarah…" he said, "Why did you run from… him?" His tone was not accusing, but curious. Sarah still swallowed as if she'd been slapped.

"You couldn't understand… he was going to keep you and turn you into a goblin…"

It occurred to Toby that having been brought up a goblin wouldn't have been so horrible. It might have been better than being a ghost all of his life. But he didn't want to say it to Sarah, and it occurred to him that everything he wanted to say to her would hurt. He could tell from the guilt on her face and the concern. She really hadn't imagined that one day he could want something that she had refused. Jareth frowned.

"Why don't you ask her what it was precisely she wished for, so very long ago, dear Jareth." He blinked first brown eye, then blue at Toby and Sarah and smiled savagely. Toby looked into Sarah's ace without thinking of it was a little surprised to see her terror there.

"Stop," she said, "That's not fair!"

"You have to pay for what you did, Sarah," Jareth almost sang, "What you wished and what you wanted."

"Just shut up, Jareth, shut up!" That sounded nothing but lame, thought Toby, but it worked. Jareth shut up. Sarah was still terrified, however, when he looked into her face, waiting for his judgment. He sighed and hung his head.

"I don't know what it is that's between you two exactly," said Toby, "and I guess…" He could guess the story of what happened with him, how that went down, and he didn't know how he felt about it, exactly. She might have wished him away, sure, but she'd gone to get him back, she did… and it was a long time ago. As S.E. Hinton said in one of his more favorite books, That Was Then and This is Now. Now, he looked at his sister, "I guess you have to make your choices and I have to make mine, and I've been happier in the last week than I have ever been in my whole life." He looked at the grinning Goblin King, "I want the crystal back. I want to stay here."

"Ask the Worldshaper," said Jareth smoothly, "Sarah, you heard him. Are you going to give him what he wants?"

"I don't see how I have anything to do with it," She said, "I guess you're old enough to make your own decisions, Toby." He could see the tears on the edge of her eyes, how much that cost her to say, begging him to reconsider.

"You will be the Goblin Prince," said Jareth softly, "the Prince of Night Places for true. If this is the world that you want."

"It is." Toby closed his eyes and looked at his sister, "Sorry."

The tears spilled over the edges of her eyes and she closed them, and then she opened them again.

She was in Toby's bed, in a silent room free of dreams or goblins, and she was so awake that it hurt.


	7. Gift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Story wanted to follow Sarah out of the World, and it nearly did too, sucking after her like thick pudding after a spoon, like a hand withdrawing from something sticky. The silence of her absence was a living thing, made of crystal and as tight as a sphere. Toby blinked, breaking his gaze away from the place where she had been. He looked at the Goblin King, who was looking at the same spot, blue-eye-brown-eye drawn after her like the story itself.

The Story wanted to follow Sarah out of the World, and it nearly did too, sucking after her like thick pudding after a spoon, like a hand withdrawing from something sticky. The silence of her absence was a living thing, made of crystal and as tight as a sphere. Toby blinked, breaking his gaze away from the place where she had been. He looked at the Goblin King, who was looking at the same spot, blue-eye-brown-eye drawn after her like the story itself.

"There's just one thing I want from you," he said, "a boon."

Blue-eye-brown-eye snap in his direction like glass cracking and fang teeth appeared in the gap where his lip jerked up.

"And what is that, little Prince?" He sounded so attentive that Toby knew he didn't give a damn what he wanted, really. He felt himself getting angry and bit down on it, hard. It wouldn't serve him now.

 _Later, perhaps,_ Whispered something in his head, and he tucked that away with the anger.

"I want my band," he said, "they'd love it here. I want to bring them too... or at least, you know... offer." Jareth's white eyebrows played an a-scale riff on his brow, but Toby stared stubbornly. He may not have had an exact idea of what it was he was asking, but he had a better idea than the Goblin King thought. Blue-eye-brown-eye smiled, and so did the rest of his face, sun-on-the-tombstones.

"Very well then, Jareth," He threw his night-cloak over his shoulders and drew from it crystals, one-two-three. "Very very well. You are certainly full of surprises. I will grant you this boon, in exchange for a gift."

A gift for a boon didn't seem like much of a gift, but he didn't care what Jareth chose to call it.

"What's your wish?" He asked with a smirk, and the Goblin King laughed like stars falling.

"Not a wish, just a wondering. A song, if you will. Give me a song, and I'll grant you your SongMakers." And he sat back down in a chair like a throne, and the room was a throne room filled with balconies of Goblins, giggling and poking each other and staring at him, on a dias before their King and Master. Unholy pale light from an unknown source picked out his features and flooded his eyes, and as they adjusted he saw King Jareth, draped across the chair with a leg hooked over one of the iron arms and the starry night spilling over the velvet cushions and pooling around the steps to the throne. The white owl was seated on his shoulder like a ghost, and so two pairs of blue-eyes-brown-eyes stared laconically at Toby, and the three crystals glowing slowly and rotating about them like a three-pointed carousel.

"Well," said the goblin King, tone dripping with something unfathomable, "Are you going to sing for us or no?" All of the goblins giggled and sniggered at this, till the King silenced them with a Look.

"Well?" He asked softly, not unkindly. Toby swallowed.

"Yes."

The Goblins hissed and gibbered their pleasure, and the King cried, "Silence! Silence, all of you. Your prince is going to sing you a story." He turned fang-teeth on Toby, "Well, Jareth, get on with it."

So he did, And the lights grew all soft and music from somewhere met him as he sang, not so good as the Prince's music, but it did what it needed and swelled where it should, so that was all right. And the song went like this, from the heart of the singers hopes:

 _Item the first to the Castle,  
Lady white-wishing, come unto me,  
taut strings of hoping that tremble with beauty,  
Here is the gift that I bear unto thee:  
An Emerald for Jade, an Ivory._

He spun out the chorus and the first crystal gleamed, filled with a gem-breen light and burst brightly, like a star through the arched amber windows of the throne room, streaming off dripping sparks and arcs of the music tied to it, as Toby came to the chorus,

 _Princes of the Night, come forth,  
Gather your stardust and all of your dreams,  
Come hand in hand, come slowly,  
Come bringing nothing, come if you dare._

And as the first stanza of the chorus faded out a new voice faded in, high aching soprano and a sweet violin, Jade with her long fingers on the neck and the bow behind him, and she smiled as their eyes met before closing them and playing on, both of their voices continuing the chorus,

 _Princes of the Night, come one and all,  
Come against light, against daylight and screams,  
Come single-file, come running,  
staggered like lightning, come if you dare._

 _Item the Next to the Castle as well,  
Lady of Lordship, wake unto me,  
Slow hands of sleeping pluck dreams sweet and burning,  
Take hands this gift, I have brought for thee:  
A star in a locket, a satin key.  
_

The second crystal spun faster than and followed the first, streaking gold light and humming with a music not dissonant but all of it's own,

 _Princes of the Night, Think fast,  
Bring me your wanting; I'll give you my hand,  
Come in a row, come ready,  
Come bearing all, but come if you dare._

Low, gutteral bass replaced the synthetic goblin rhythm, the copper-peach hands of Michigan stroking the music out of its strings. Sweat dripped from her face as she bore down on her axe, and she didn't need to acknowledge them nor they her, because it was all there in the tone of her playing and god was it good. But three voices ripped into the next line and verse, stronger than before,

 _Princes of the Night, come black and white,  
Come against evening, like you understand,  
Come in a pack, come walking sedately,  
Painted like gypsies, come if you dare. _

_Item the third, once more to the Castle,  
Lord of the Morning, burn unto me,  
Voices of ancestors, like hearts hard and beating,  
Take, mouth, this gift; it is for thee:  
The heart of the Heavens, the soul of the Sea._

The last crystal hung heavy with the deepest blue glowing before it went the way of its sisters, and the sparks scattered all over the clusters of goblins gathered in the stands, and they oohed and screamed and went wilder than before,

 _Princes of the Night, come One-Two-Three,  
Come with your aching, your heart on your lips,  
Come like you mean it, come empty,  
Glowing like lost gods, come if you dare. _

Rat-a-tat and there like a wave crashes, the Last Prince tore up the low light of the stage soloing sweet and hard on his kit, kicking up the heat with each hit of his sticks, grinning his love on his mates playing before him. He winked especially at Toby as he tossed a drumstick in the air and caught it, and Toby grinned back, high on glory and having a ball as they rocked it to the grand finale, four voices and no waiting,

 _And Then Came the Princes, like the Four Fatal Horsemen,  
Wrecking the Silence like the reef will wreck ships,  
Come they like thunder, like hearts that want wanting,  
Dance you their Magic, Dance if you Dare!_

They repeated the chorus once more, one-two-three-four, and the final chord faded amid the screaming of demons, losing their minds for the love of the Princes and their passionate play.

"Very nice." said Jareth, almost voiceless in the din as he eyed the four children, standing before him. The owl on his shoulder shifted and said, "Hoo," seemingly in agreement. He clapped his hands slowly, steady clap after steady clap, a slow ironic applause that was nonetheless meant.

And the Princes bowed and looked around at each other like the way lucky people disbelieve in their own luck, dubious and grinning. They would talk about it later, what it was and what it meant, but for the moment they had just played their first piece of their first concert, and really there was nothing for it but to move on to the next piece, work out the set, and so that was what they did, knocking Jareth back in his throne with surprise as they slipped into the next song, and the next and the next. King-eyes met Prince-eyes, brown-eye-blue striking blue-eye-brown like flint over the microphone, saying that the songs were for him after all, a really, truly gift, a whole strumming set of gifts wrapped up in rhyme and tied with rare melody, _Thanks for all you've done for me, ooh-wah, ooh-wah_.

The Goblin King had nothing to say to that, so he said nothing at all, impassive.

"Hoo." said the Owl to him, and there might have been an odd sort of smug in it's tone, a little.

"Oh shut up," hissed Jareth, and the band played on.


	8. Junk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the floor, the Hoggle sat, looking at her with his brown eyes set deep in his dried-apple face. She was not at all surprised to find him there, looking not uncomfortable, but sad, which on him looked like annoyance. He lifted her from the bed by his shoulder and helped her into her own room. She moved slowly, fully articulated joints creaking like a Gi-joe that's been left in the sandbox. The comparason pounded in her head oddly as she entered her room, which took a breath of relief as it accepted her.

She was far too awake, so awake it hurt, lying on the bed in her brother's room with her eyes plastered open and hardly knowing what she was. She felt Toby's absence inside of her, brittle and strange.

On the floor, the Hoggle sat, looking at her with his brown eyes set deep in his dried-apple face. She was not at all surprised to find him there, looking not uncomfortable, but sad, which on him looked like annoyance. He lifted her from the bed by his shoulder and helped her into her own room. She moved slowly, fully articulated joints creaking like a Gi-joe that's been left in the sandbox. The comparason pounded in her head oddly as she entered her room, which took a breath of relief as it accepted her.

 _Hello_ said her ancient friends, the dreams that she had dreamed in this room, her pillow still filled with the dust of her old dreams, _We've missed you everso._

She sat on the bed and said nothing, and the Hoggle sat beside her. The room accepted her silence in the same way that a cat accepts it when his mistress wants to pay more attention to the keyboard than Himself. It mewed and pured and pushed at her hand and her mind with its memories, stroking the fur of them about her skin. She appreciated this, but it didn't ultimately help, stroking on the surface of a skin-drum does not fill it. She felt old. She felt robbed.

She felt keenly that whatever this was, it was not her story anymore, though it was true that it had been once. The tale had been wrenched from her, goblin baby made of paper and inspired daydream, born of her brain and now hacking away at it's own umbilical cord with the blade of- her brother. Go on, take everything. She hadn't thought it in years, after years of being open enough in her heart to love him too, but now it had all turned its back on her, and there was nothing left. He had taken it all again (it weaseled through her brain, through her). She felt this, in spite of the earth-eyes of Hoggle looking at her.

"Don't be stupid, missy," he said to her, "and sit around feeling sorry for yourself." He frowned and looked at his feet, swinging above the floor. He looked different sometimes now, after all this time, and had been known by many other names, but he was one of the ones that stayed with her, and was always with her, her constant companion and friend of her thoughts. This is why he hesitated a moment before he said, "Did you honestly think that when you turned your back from it, the world of the Labyrinth disappeared too?"

Sort-of. He knew the answer as well as she did. It lived in memory for her, and that was all. Hoggle and Didimus and Ludo had said often enough that they were greatful to her for rescuing them from it, or rather, for taking them into the Other Worlds, the ones she confined to page after page and walked through in her perfect and terrible dreams. Oh they had changed, they all had, all of them. Didimus now looked more like a man of a fox-ish nature, had grown amusingly bishounen, and rode a large white wolf instead of a shaggy dog. Ludo had not changed terribly much, but he had the least opportunity, content to lie in the warm tunnels of her psyche and keep her warm and safe feeling. She thought of him now, and it made her feel a bit better, a bit more full. But still.

Hoggle sighed at her. "You're better off. I can't speak for that ungrateful, stupid brother of yours, but it's his choice, after all."

"Yes," she said out loud, "but it's my world. I made it... up." Sort of. She had taken it out of another book and lived in it so hard it had become... something. It was not exactly hers, not the clay of it, but she had taken that clay and shaped into vitality. She'd learned this, eventually. And her friends' gratitude was that when the whole of it had become too real and had tried to shape her back the way she had shaped it to begin with, she had not left them behind too to be forgotten; memories pretty-trinket junk-heap. Ah, she knew, she knew, she knew all of this, but she had not thought on it in some time. She had kept the Worlds (for the most part) to safe places, pen and screen, page and ink. She read things and slept on them, and did not let them seduce her the way she once had. She was in control of her creations. She thought. She assumed. She believed. "What do you... what should I do, Hoggle?" She asked, very near to tears.

"How should I know?" He asked, but hugged her anyway. He was gruff about it but not unkind, "I suppose you have a choice. You could involve yourself again and take it back, or you could... forget about it, I suppose. He's not a baby anymore."

"But I can't," she said, "don't you see that I..." She stopped, her face stricken like with a rod of black iron, and she put her face in her hands, "Oh Hoggle!"

"There there Sarah," he said, "it's all right. Don't cry..."

And the room and all in it mewed too, whimpering and her heart cried, 'junk, junk, junk,' and wondered what really matterd now, again. The question could never stop being asked, and never entirely got a satisfactory answer.


	9. Quest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I..." It would not sound right, in words. The music of before had honestly explained quite a bit, but not exactly. So Jonah said,

The last note dripped away with the coming of day, and the goblins all crept away to their little bunks and beds, carrying impromptu posters and reminders of their new Princes, their night Princes, hail and huzzah. The King of the Realm gave them a suite and the four of them stood about in it, hardly daring to speak, three sets of eyes staring at one brown one blue, their friend and lead vocalist, wondering what had just happened exactly. They knew, they did not know, they guessed, their dreams blown through the stuff of sounds and strung out to dry in the dawn. Toby licked his lips.

"I..." It would not sound right, in words. The music of before had honestly explained quite a bit, but not exactly. So Jonah said,

"So the way I see it, we're in this magic realm and that guy on the throne, he's like, the King of Dreams, and we're now his official court musicians and you..." Jonah blinked, "you're really his son?"

"Um. No, not... exactly." Toby said, shifting a bit on his feet and gazing out of the window of the room, over the goblin city. Day looked dead on the red stones, sandstone, carnelian and porophry and red marble. Their suite was carved of the stuff, and decorated with little gilt chairs and settees and thick heavy fabrics embroidered with scenes of demons pulling down maidens and dragons and knights in hoardes, and also tricking mankind into giving them their babies and gold. The air smelled of cinnamon and sulphur, and was warm as the outside of the oven that Gretl pushed the witch into, just before Hansel could be baked into a pie, "though the magic realm part... yeah, I think so. Um... do you mind?"

Jade looked at Michigan, who shook her head. "Not so much, nah."

Jade touched the glowing crystals hovering atop a golden stand, spilling soft moon-like light through the room and softening the glare of the goblin-day, "Is this all real?"

"Yeah." said Toby, "I'm pretty sure it is. I mean, that's the guy I told you about, the Goblin King from my dream, but I don't think we're any of this going to wake up. And that's fine with me coz I chose it, but you guys..." He swallowed, "I wanted to ask, you know, properly, in case..."

"You did already," said Jade, eyes glinting serious through her chunky cat-glasses, "At least, I think so. That's what that song promised, didn't it?"

Toby nodded.

"Then what do we do now?" Michigan frowned a little, "in terms of the practical. This may all be magic, but I'm not sure I want to sing songs in a goblin court forever, even if the little guys are so terribly sweet about liking our music."

"Word," said Jonah, catching one blue eye with his two blue eyes. That wasn't all the song promised, "what else is there, Prince Toby?"

"A quest, of course," he said without thinking, "Prince Jonah. And a labyrinth outside of these walls, and a lesson, because there always must be something learned at the end of the night. Planes of Unpercieved Reality. Something like that. And songs to be found along the way. That's what I think, anyway." Mostly. There was the nagging feeling in the back of his skull however, a scratching, a do-not-forget-me. This was Jareth, of course, and no mistake. But the Princes seemed enthusiastic about his idea.

"A quest through and out, instead of down and in," mused Jade, "since I'm betting the city is the heart of it all."

"Maybe," said Toby, who really didn't know.

"We'll find out, though." Jonah grinned and winked.

"We will." Toby said.


End file.
